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The air outside is crisp. You can see your breath and the end of your nose is red and cold. The houses that you pass have Christmas trees in the windows. There are lights arranged all over the front lawns. The stores are all lit up and twinkling. The bell ringers are sitting in front of the shops collecting your spare change for charity.

But it’s not a Christmas party that we’re going to tonight.

I’m sitting in a restaurant with my wife and my daughter. It’s not a fancy place. “It’s not the Shangri-La,” as I’ve been known to say in description of any place that doesn’t require a jacket and tie. No, this is just a hamburger joint.

We’re sitting in a booth enjoying big, fat cheeseburgers, shoestring fries, and ice cream sundaes. There is electricity in the air. There is a smile on my face. This is a special day.

At the table next to us there are two men about my age. They’re having a casual conversation about their work and if you just listened to the words you’d think they were in bus…

Over the past few years I’ve noticed something about myself.
My ideas about the world around me are changing. Things that I used to have a
problem with no longer upset me. And things that I was once accustomed to is
really starting to bother me. I don’t know if it’s something that comes with
age, but ideologically speaking…I’m a different person than I was twenty years
ago. Actually, I think I’ve changed a lot just in the last ten years or so. I’ll
give a few examples.
When I was a kid growing up here in the south I was taught
that homosexuality was a sin and that anyone that is homosexual is going to
Hell. I no longer think that way. I now think that homosexuals are regular
people who have a lifestyle that is a little different than mine. I believe
that their choice of mate should have nothing to do with their rights and that loving
someone is not a reason to go to Hell.
I was raised in an area that was pretty thick with racism.
The hatred was mostly directed toward black people, bu…

Right now the world is a very serious place. There is a lot
of violence happening all over the place. The past few months has seen hatred
spewing from both sides of every issue. And then last week the internet proved
that there are people sitting primed and ready to pounce on any issue.
ANY issue.
Last week Nintendo introduced a new app called Pokémon Go.
It’s an augmented reality game based on the popular franchise from the 90s. If
I just lost you then give me a second to explain two things…what Pokémon is and
what augmented reality is.
In the 90s there was a cartoon series along with a bunch of
video games called Pokémon. The basic premise was that there are tiny monsters
all over the world called Pokémon. They all have unique powers and live in
different habitats. On the show there were kids that would catch the little
creatures and use them in tournaments against one another. The video games,
toys, card games, and board games worked on the same idea.
As far as augmented reality…t…

Anyone that has read this blog or the blogs that I had
before know a little bit about my struggles with my weight. I’ve delved into it
in depth before in writing and on my podcast, Shrinking Shawn. I’ve been at a
hiatus for a while now as I haven’t been able to get a good running start back
into weight loss so far this year. I’ve been stagnate for all of 2016. I’ve
lost a little weight but it hasn’t been very much.
My battles with my weight have very much mirrored my father.
He didn’t grow up overweight like I did, but he put it on as an adult. He’s
lost a significant amount of weight and put it back on several times in my
lifetime, just as I have. I’ve seen him try every diet that you can think of.
He was a vegetarian for a while. He did the Atkins diet. He rode a bike. He
golfed. He took daily hikes.
He was a fireman for most of my childhood. He was forced to
retire from the fire department about 15 years ago because he had developed
COPD and an enlarged heart. A week ago we got th…

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Today is a dark day.
If you’ve ever read any of my blog posts before then you’ve
heard me tell the stories of my experiences in high school. I was bullied. I
was bullied a lot. It’s something that has affected me my entire life. It has
caused social anxiety issues that I deal with to this day. It’s not something
that I like to remember, but it’s my history and it’s a part of who I am.
Granted, I was an awkward teenager. I didn’t play any
sports. I wasn’t on the little league team. I didn’t even like watching sports...I
still don’t. I don’t know enough about football to have an extended
conversation about it. The stuff that I was into was a lot nerdier than that. I
liked Star Trek. I liked reading science fiction and fantasy novels. I liked
writing stories. I liked watching old black and white monster movies. I liked
British sitcoms. Like I said…weird kid.
When I was a junior in high school I signed up to be a
library aid for one class period a day. I figured I liked to be around book…

He was a kid.
He wasn’t literally a child. I mean, he was technically a
grown man at the age of 23. But he hadn’t really experienced much of life. The
small town life had been all he’d every really known and he had not yet figured
out what his place in the world was. He made $6.50 an hour at a job that didn’t
really hold much of a future for him. He spent his days working and at night he’d
sit alone in his room, watching TV and wishing that there was more to his
existence.
She was a kid, too. She was only 22. And in her short life
she’d actually already lived a lot. She’d lived long enough to have been hurt
by the man she loved. And she’d been around long enough to have a precious
little boy that meant the world to her. She thought she had everything she
needed. She thought that if it were just her and her son that she’d be fine.
The Universe had other plans.
These two met one day. They went on a date. Neither of them was
really out to find a relationship. They were each just trying …

As I walked by my daughter’s bedroom a couple of weeks ago I saw her staring intently at her phone. I could tell that she was enthralled in something and I figured she was catching up on some of her favorite shows.
“What are you watching?” I said, trying to be the dad that
knows what his daughter is doing.
“It’s a new show on Netflix,” she replied. “It’s called 13 Reasons Why. Everybody at school is
watching it.”
I thought nothing else about it. I very rarely condemn
anything that my kids are watching unless I know that it is something extremely
violent or raunchy. The title actually registered in my mind because I had seen
the book on the shelf at the bookstore and online a few times. I knew it was a
young adult title so I figured a Netflix show based on that should be alright.
I mean, she’s seen The Hunger Games,
right?
A couple of days later my wife tells me that she saw a few
stories online about some kids that have committed suicide after watching the
show. That sounds a little f…